Chapter Six
Katrina
“It’s been a while since it was just the five of us.” Katrina leaned back on the chair (that looked suspiciously like it had been bought from Jysk) in Misty’s apartment. She and her four original roommates sat around a table that had an ancient-looking monopoly board set up. “Everything has changed since you all decided to move here.”
Anna and Misty glanced at each other, their expressions inscrutable.
Penny sighed. “You mean since we got married. But that’s what happens. We were roommates, friends. Heck, we’ve kept in contact more than I thought we would. I mean… you gals are my family now, but families also go their separate ways eventually.”
“Well, you’ll want to stay here sooner or later, too,” Misty said, patting Katrina’s hand. “I mean, you’re—” she flinched as Anna jerked.
“Did you just kick her?” Katrina demanded.
Anna tried to pull an innocent look, but it wasn’t at all believable. Apparently, she knew it, too, because she shrugged and glanced away. “I guess I just don’t think we need to be teasing you about Thonis.”
The others flinched a little and Katrina stared around them. What was she missing here? She opened her mouth to ask them exactly what was happening, but Misty laughed loudly and leaned her elbows on the table. Her brows waggled playfully as she fixed Katrina in her sights.
“Anna might think so, but I don’t. So. Have you slept with him yet?”
Heat rushed to Katrina’s face. “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
Misty’s eyes glinted. “Oooh, so that’s a yes. Is he as good in bed as he looks like he’d be?”
“You’re a married woman,” Katrina shot back, pressing herself against her chair. “What would Hendric think of you asking questions like that?”
Misty grinned wickedly. “He’d tell you to answer the question already, woman!”
“Ugh!” Katrina threw her hands in the air. “I thought that being married and living for hundreds of years would make you a little more mature. Not to mention that you have a child. Why are you still an immature little—"
“Because time in Byerlmore and time on Earth work differently,” Anna interrupted. “Honestly, it feels so much… I don’t know. Slower over there. It can be several months here, a week on Earth and when we meet again it only feels like a week. A hundred years feels like a year. I mean… it doesn’t feel like I’m changing that quickly. I mean, I see a big difference now from when I first came here, but the first hundred years and the second hundred years… I didn’t change all that much.”
Katrina picked up the little silver dog from the monopoly set. “But time does change things. I mean, look at this set.”
The four glanced at it. Anna frowned, and Misty sighed.
“Yeah. So, whether it’s that time is different here or just our bodies… Honestly, it’s impossible to tell.”
“Not really.” Katrina put the dog down, thinking about Thonis. There was something that had to happen with humans when they mated with dragons. Apparently, it was something different than just marriage; there was some sort of binding of souls that affected more than just the human in question but other humans they were bonded with, too. Otherwise, Lisa and Mark would be dead of old age by now. “There are humans here that live the normal length of lives, right? If they don’t live for hundreds of years, too, then it has to be your bodies. Not that time is different here.”
Penny thought a moment and shrugged, looking slightly ashamed. “That’s a good point. I guess I forget sometimes that there are humans here that live the usual hundred years. We don’t have a lot to do with humans who aren’t mated to dragons. Those that we do have contact with are mages, and they live longer than non-mage humans.”
Katrina opened her mouth to argue that she wasn’t mated to a dragon, nor was she a mage, but Anna interrupted her.
“I know what that sounds like. Honestly, it got me a little when I first came here, too. It’s not because we don’t want regular humans here. Though that might be a subconscious part of it… the fact is, humans don’t really live in Byrelmore.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“There are a lot of different kingdoms in this world,” Anna continued. “Byrelmore is the only kingdom where dragons live in large numbers. From what I understand, it was founded by a king thousands and thousands of years ago as a safe haven for dragons and mages against other kingdoms that were trying to exterminate them.”
Katrina frowned as she absorbed that information. They had always known that there was a certain level of time travel when moving between Byrelmore and Earth. She had assumed that Byrelmore was from a completely different universe or something, too… but what if it wasn’t all that different. She leaned forward again. “What sort of maps do you have here?”
“Maps?” Anna repeated
“Yeah, maps. You know, the things people draw when they want to know where they are?” Katrina’s fingers started to drum on the table. “Maybe it’s possible that Byrelmore is part of Earth right now? And something happened that took magic away… I mean, there are so many shows that talk about lay lines, right? Veins of magic in the Earth’s crust. If they were depleted, then maybe the time we’re from is actually Byrelmore’s future, depending on where we are, and the magic from here is reigniting the magic in the future… then it wouldn’t be a matter of a paradox destroying our worlds, right?”
Anna sighed. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen any evidence that we’re in the same world. I just know that we have the largest concentration of dragons and mages and the other kingdoms generally don’t have them. There are exceptions, of course, but—”
“But what if Byrelmore is Atlantis?”
The four other women stared at her. Sylvia spoke slowly, her hands curling on the table. “So, you’re saying that maybe Byrelmore is going to be destroyed and wiped from the face of the planet?”
A ball of dread sank in Katrina’s stomach. No, that hadn’t been what she’d meant at all! But what if that was exactly what was going to happen?
Anna stood and began gathering the game. “Byrelmore isn’t Atlantis and it’s not going to be destroyed. Atlantis was mentioned once in ancient texts. In a work of fiction. It was never real and, quite frankly, we don’t have to worry about this. Audiv and the other mages are working on a solution to our problem, and we are not going to be destroyed.”
She sounded so forceful that Katrina didn’t want to continue this conversation. As much as she wanted to theorize and try to find a solution to the problem, she didn’t even know what the problem was yet. No, Anna was right. They needed to let the mages do their work and figure out what was happening.
“So.” Sylvia turned to her. “You know that I think a person’s sex life is their own business.”
Katrina closed her eyes in dismay. “Not you, too!”
“Now just listen.” Sylvia sounded amused. “I’m not asking for any details. I just want to know… if anything has happened. You talk about him a lot.”
How was she supposed to answer that? Katrina ran a hand through her tight curls and rested her elbows on the table. “Okay. Yeah. I like him. And I would like it if something happened. But it hasn’t. I don’t know what he thinks or feels… and honestly? I’m not sure how I do, either. I am hesitant to start anything with him.”
“Why?” Penny asked. “He’s smart, brave, handsome…”
“And he’s lying to me.” Katrina’s gaze darkened. “I don’t know about what, but he is lying. It feels like everybody in Byrelmore is lying to me about something important—even you gals,” she added as her former roommates glanced nervously at each other. “And I want to know what it’s about.”
Sylvia, Penny, and Misty all glanced at Anna. Katrina stared at her, wondering why they were deferring to her. After a moment, Anna looked up. But unlike her normal cheerful, geeky self, she looked serious. The look on her face was the look she got whenever she had to do some unpleasant queenly duty.
“I’m sorry that you feel that way. But if there is something being kept from you, please trust that it’s for a reason.”
“So, you are keeping something from me?”
Anna shook her head. “Why don’t we play another game?”
Katrina stared at her. Did she really think it would be that easy? Her jaw tightened to the point her muscles started spasming, and she leapt to her feet. A strange taste coated her tongue and her stomach felt hot, like someone had lit a fire inside of her.
“No thank you,” she said coldly. “I don’t want to play games with liars.”
She turned on her heel and walked away despite their protests.
***
“What are you doing?” Thonis demanded as Katrina dragged him into her room. “I just got off duty, I—”
“Then you have time.” Katrina slammed the door shut and turned, glowering at him. “I want to know what everybody here is hiding from me.”
Thonis’ eyes widened.
“Don’t look at me like that. I know that there is something you’re lying to me about. So, what is it?” He pressed his lips tightly together; clearly, he didn’t plan to tell her anything. Katrina let out a growl of frustration as she pressed him against the wall. “What? Is it that I broke something when I came here? Am I never going to be allowed back home?”
“That’s not it,” Thonis said slowly, a furrow in his brow.
“Then what—”
Without warning, he pushed her away. But rather than the distance staying between them, Thonis spun her around. He pressed his body hard against hers, pinning her there. His eyes flickered to her lips, stealing her breath. Then he kissed her. Hard, passionate, with an almost manic energy. Katrina’s eyes widened for a moment. Her mind ran wildly. Why was he kissing her now?
Then she decided she didn’t care. He wasn’t going to give her answers—fine. But there was more than one question on her mind when she dragged him in here, and now she had an answer. She threw her arms around his neck and pulled him closer, a gasp escaping from her lips as he deepened the kiss.
If she couldn’t have answers, she could at least have him.